You finished the artwork, exported a clean PNG, and then the print shop, publisher, or archive came back with one line: please send a TIFF. It is a familiar moment for designers, photographers, and anyone submitting figures to a journal or records to an institutional repository. PNG is a perfectly good lossless format, but the print and archiving world standardized on TIFF decades ago, and much of its software — prepress systems, digital asset managers, government submission portals — still expects it.
The good news is that this is one of the safest conversions you can make. PNG and TIFF are both lossless, so the pixels in your TIFF will match the pixels in your PNG exactly; nothing is recompressed, softened, or approximated. What changes is the container. TIFF has been a fixture of professional imaging since the late 1980s, which is precisely why conservative workflows trust it: virtually every layout program, scanner suite, and archival system written in the last thirty years reads it without complaint.
With Convertmaxxing the whole job happens locally. The converter runs as WebAssembly inside your browser tab, so your artwork never crosses the network — no upload, no server-side processing, no copy of a client's unreleased files sitting in someone else's queue. It is free, requires no signup, and the engine — a one-time download of about 5 MB — is cached by your browser, so later conversions start instantly. If the PNG carries metadata you would rather not pass along with a deliverable, you can strip it during conversion.
Expect the TIFF to come out noticeably larger than the PNG you started with; the format favors fidelity and broad compatibility over compactness, and print vendors are used to receiving big files. One thing worth confirming with your vendor is color: the output here is a standard RGB TIFF, which most modern print workflows accept and convert using their own color profiles. If a job strictly demands CMYK delivery, that separation step needs dedicated prepress software.
Why convert PNG to TIFF?
- Print shops, publishers, and archival systems frequently require TIFF and reject PNG uploads
- Both formats are lossless, so your artwork arrives pixel-for-pixel identical
- TIFF is readable by decades of professional software, from prepress systems to digital asset managers
- Your files stay on your machine — nothing is uploaded, which matters for unreleased client work
- Optional metadata stripping cleans deliverables before they go out the door
How it works
- Step 1
Drop your files
Drag your PNG files into the converter above, or click “Choose files”. Batches are welcome.
- Step 2
Pick your settings
TIFF is preselected. Adjust quality or size if you want, or keep the defaults.
- Step 3
Convert and download
Conversion runs locally in your browser. Download files individually or grab everything as a zip.
Frequently asked questions
- Is any quality lost when converting PNG to TIFF?
- None. Both formats store image data losslessly, so this conversion simply moves the exact same pixels into a different container. The TIFF will render identically to your PNG in any viewer, which is why there is no quality setting for this conversion — there is nothing to trade off.
- Does the transparency in my PNG survive the conversion?
- Yes — TIFF supports alpha channels, so transparent areas in your PNG carry through. Be aware, though, that some print workflows prefer or require flattened images with no transparency. If the file is headed to a commercial printer, it is worth asking whether they want the alpha channel kept or the image flattened onto a background first.
- Do my design files get uploaded to a server during conversion?
- No. Everything runs inside your browser using WebAssembly — the file is read, converted, and written back out entirely on your own device. That means client work, unpublished photography, and embargoed figures stay exactly where they already are. The tool is free and needs no account.
- Will the TIFF be in CMYK for print?
- No — the output is a standard RGB TIFF. In practice most modern print shops accept RGB files and perform the CMYK separation themselves with profiles calibrated to their presses, which usually produces better results than a generic conversion. If your vendor strictly requires CMYK delivery, you will need prepress software with proper color management for that step.
- Why is the resulting TIFF so much bigger than my PNG?
- That is expected. PNG applies aggressive lossless compression, while TIFF prioritizes fidelity and compatibility with decades of professional software over small file sizes. The extra bulk does not mean extra quality — the image data is identical — and print and archival workflows are built to handle large files.